Tonight...Mostly clear. Lows 61 to 67.
I am enamored with desert dew because it's usually the closest thing we get to rain. ~Linda Solegato
You know you live in Phoenix when you are willing to park 3 blocks away because you actually found shade from a palm tree imported 300 miles from California and nurtured with water piped 250 miles from Nevada. 
Moving from Europe to Hawaii, and living there for six years - the last year completely separated geographically from each other.
My niece-in-law (my husband's niece) is from Alaska. I am an Arizonian - at least for the past ten years.
So we are discovering an amazing amount of contrary realities as we are spending time together in Oregon
Alaska is the nation's most northern. Mine is far south - as long as you forget 
about Hawaii, Florida and quite a bit of Texas.
But I do live three miles
from Mexico, so at least we both have international boundaries (Canada is still a foreign country, isn't it?).
An Arizona senator teamed with the Alaskan governor to lose the presidential bid in 2008 - but that has little to do with anything except to promote Sandra Palin's book, and I am NOT trying to do anything like that.
But perhaps just mention that a native Alaskan would like to be quoted as saying, "We couldn't stomach the wench" - I am slightly concerned about her still trying to run again in 2012, since we as a nation rarely learn from our past.
From an Alaskan viewpoint, the Oregon soil here is so DRY. And of course, to someone coming from Arizona, the ground here is green and squelchy and MUDDY.
The Oregon sun rarely is visible, which seems okay to an Alaskan - I am rapidly succumbing to S.A.D. from not having constant, bright sunshine every day.
The 
highways here are plentiful, broad and well maintained - when you are coming from Juneau.
And actually, they are pretty good compared to the dirt road I live on.
But Stefani has a beautiful, smooth and clear complexion without having to worry about sun screen - I am freckled, wrinkled and dried out.
She grew up on an island off the Alaskan panhandle - I grew up in the middle of Los Angeles in the years before sunscreen was used by anyone except nervous little old ladies who didn't want any more wrinkles.
Perhaps if I had a chance to do it over again, I might start out just a little farther north.
Having a job outside the home requires several things.
One thing is a 'work' wardrobe. 
When I was working at BYU, the dress code forbade blue jeans. I was working on a night custodial crew - so I wore overalls - every night. And nobody could complain because they weren't blue jeans.
And when I worked for a pharmaceutical company - as a reward for getting our first drug FDA approved, our CEO gave us the okay for casual dress for the entire summer. And everyone liked it so much, he kept it for the rest of the year.
And with working, you have MAJOR food issues.
Most places, you put your name on your lunch (or in my case I just kept buying funky lunchboxes on sale that no one else in their right mind would want to claim), and hope that most individuals keep their dirty fingers out of your chocolate pudding.
Sodas, however, are difficult, if not impossible, to label.
And they get taken.... a LOT. Unless you drink something like diet bourbon dosed with lemon... no, actually, that would probably be taken FIRST.
Thankfully, I went back to a regular job not that long after leaving Germany.
And Germans do not believe in refrigerating a lot of things. Beer is warm, milk is so ultra pasteurized that you keep it in the cupboard, not the cooler. So you get used to it - and room temperature sodas were the norm.
The coldest temperature ever recorded in the world (outside of a lab, I mean) was at Vostok, Antarctica, at minus 89.2 °C (-128° F, for all you non-metric Americans).
The coldest in the U.S.A. was -62.11° C (–79.8°F) at Prospect Creek Camp in northern Alaska.
The coldest in Arizona was at Hawley Lake -40° C (-40° F - and isn't that cool that it's the same both in Celsius and Fahrenheit?)
Sierra Vista got down to 11° C. (11° F) in 1985 (and I'm not making this up!), with the lowest recorded in Palominos, Arizona has been the same.
That puts our local weather report back in perspective - tomorrow night is predicted to get as cold as -5° C. (23° F).
ATTENTION FELLOW SOUTHERN ARIZONANS - WE ARE NOT GONNA DIE.
But now we have a GREAT excuse to go shopping tonight!
My oldest daughter has olfactory senses that reach far beyond the level of paranormal. She can smell a digestive action at 500 meters, or a body that has not been showered, powdered and deodorized within the last 6 minutes at 2 miles.
I can only smell a litter-box-beyond-the-necessary-time-to-empty when I want to. Through the years of small children in diapers, numerous canines/felines/equines, and foreign military assignments in areas where elevated standards of personal hygiene were not part of the culture, I think I have learned to eradicate many sensory susceptibilities.
Or simply come to like them.
I love the smell of my dog - and he smells exactly like a dog should (i.e. furry, outdoorsy, and doggy breath). I absolutely ADORE the smell of 
my horses - if it could be packaged as an indoor deodorizer (which would rather defeat the original purpose, I realize), I would buy it in bulk.
And after living in Arizona high chaparral for ten years, I still take a deep breath almost every time I step outside to inhale the scent of mesquite, sand and simple clear air coming down from the Huachuca Mountains.
With one MAJOR exception.
Fire.
I live surrounded by wide, open grasslands which, for 93.06% of the year are brown, sun-bleached and extremely flammable.
I live within clear sight of Mexico, which does not try in anyway at all to contain their wildfires - they just let them burn out on their own.
After sunset, it's not that bad - I can walk the perimeter of my property with my dog, and it'
s fairly easy to see fire of any noticeable size burning. And in the daytime, smoke is usually present.
And since I detest beyond reasonable cause the smell of burning flesh, I can normally deduce if it is simply a family barbecue upwind. 
So what do you do at night when you smell smoke, but can't locate the source?
I can't phone our local volunteer fire department direct without waking someone up - I can't call 911 because it's not an emergency (at least not yet).
Out of sheer desperation, I call the non-emergency county sheriff's office.
Now to just put this in proportion, our county is 6,219 square miles in size - that's larger than the state of Connecticut, and just slightly smaller than the state of New Jersey.
Lotta area to cover. 
So I was extremely grateful to get a polite, courteous gentleman to took the time to calm this old woman's fears of being burned to death in her sleep - which because of recent events is more than slightly elevated.
I'm not afraid of dying - but I am extremely anxious about being burned.
Arizona is where people used to move to when they had allergies.
This is no longer true.
Before cattle and/or ranchers moved into Arizona from Texas and New Mexico, an entirely different kind of landscape existed.
And it may have been horrible for allergy-sufferers back then; some day some prehistoric Native-American hieroglyphics may be uncovered that show figures sneezing and taking antihistamines.
(Sidebar here: saying "Native Americans" is extremely politically correct, but even Native Americans call themselves Indians, so it's kinda silly)
(Second sidebar: and who the heck decides what is prehistoric? If there is a record of some sort, then isn't it history, not pre-history? Who decides how far the date gets pushed back?)
Then the cattle brought in mesquite trees through their dung (gross, but true), and then ate the native grasslands out of existence.
Okay, now it becomes the "No-Allergy Land Of Retirees And People Who Can't Take The Humidity of Florida," and the city of Phoenix is born (I live almost as far as you can be from Phoenix and still be in the state of Arizona).
But then, as the P.W.C.T.T.H.O.F move in, they bring with them their favorite plants.
And plant them. And water them. And they GROW.
Hello again, pollen, spores and allergies.
I didn't have allergies until I moved here.
And for the past five or six years, I have been taking 1 -2 allergy prescriptions, nasal spray and OTC allergy meds.
Today, my doctor proved once again what a wonderful physician he is.
Instead of giving me another prescription, he gave me an injection.
And not JUST an injection, but a STRONG injection; his wording was "Let's just go right to the really good stuff."
He rocks.
Although now I have an injection site on one buttock, and a biopsy site on the other buttock (results already back - that pre-cancerous deal again).
I am typing this standing.
